The Los Angeles Kings have a very real chance of winning their second Stanley Cup in three years tonight. It's an amazing feat for a team that was built with purpose and with patience, and they deserve all the credit in the world for it. Most people are giving it to them.

There are some Leafs fans who hold a grudge though, based solely on an incident from 21 years ago, that happens to be my most frequent "Wayback Wednesday" request and one of the most popular mailbag questions since it started (just behind "who will replace Carlyle????"). I'm referring to...

"Do the Leafs win the Stanley Cup if Wayne Gretzky is called for a high stick in Game 6?"

First and foremost, you should have let this go 21 years ago. Secondly, probably not.

The good thing about today? I managed to take care of so many day-to-day errands that I can't actually remember most of the day's events. The not so good thing? It's 10:44 AM and I'm about to do my second mailbag in three days. It sucks, I know, but at least we're getting to the bottom of the inbox. Besides, I'm hoping to get our first Wayback Wednesday post in a while up tomorrow, so that will be something, right?

It’s summer at the Nation Network. All five sites’ teams missed the playoffs this season -- a new record -- so thanks guys. The annual “the Oilers missed the playoffs so Wanye goes running off into the world to backpack and pout” trip is now over. We are looking straight down the barrel of another Charity draft party and are starting to shill tickets.

The machine can't stop turning just because every single team we cover has failed epically.

There are, at any given time, 540 jobs for skaters in the NHL, and only half of those players should be deemed at a high-enough level above replacement that a player of a similar skill level couldn't be picked up freely on waivers, like Jussi Jokinen, or close to free via a low round pick, like Mathieu Perreault. That means that when you draft a player, you're hoping that he'll wind up in the Top 270 or thereabouts.